Presidential Debate Viewership Breaks A 36-Year Record

While Monday night’s matchup between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton failed to hit the anticipated 100 million viewer mark, it did earn the distinction of being the most watched presidential debate in history.

Based on research by Neilsen, more than 81 million people tuned in to watch the first of three debates in this year’s presidential race.

That means this debate beat the previous record of 80 million viewers, which was set in 1980 in a debate between President Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

Among the cable news networks, Fox News Channel attracted more than 11.4 million viewers, while CNN had 9.8 million and MSNBC had 4.9 million.

The breakdown by viewership: The six traditional broadcast networks drew 54 million viewers, the big three cable news channels drew 26 million and the two cable business networks added just over 1 million, for a total of 81.3 million.

CNN attracted the most viewers for its post-debate coverage (5.1 million), followed by Fox News Channel (4.6 million) and MSNBC (3.2 million).

The second presidential debate, scheduled for Oct. 9 in St. Louis, will be moderated by ABC’s Martha Raddatz and CNN’s Anderson Cooper.